


wanna make that big mistake?

by gellophy



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Arranged Marriage, Delinquent, F/M, Rebels, Runaway, They hate their fathers, going on a secret trip, travel buddies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29289759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gellophy/pseuds/gellophy
Summary: Rumors surround Gaara like moths to flame and Hinata has heard it all, and he might be the most shady, dangerous person she's ever known, someone she knows she shouldn't associate herself with. But in her predicament, the person she can only think of to run to is him.
Relationships: Gaara/Hyuuga Hinata
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

There was always at least one new rumour about Gaara once a month, when he became the topic of conversations of almost every group of students at Hinata’s school. Rumour had it that Gaara, a boy with crimson hair, black rings around his eyes, and no eyebrows, was crazy. That his own family wasn’t brave enough to send him to school _suitable_ for people _like_ him. They said that he had screamed to their faces yelling that he wasn’t crazy. So, as the rumour said, his own family sent him to a boarding school in Konoha because they didn’t want to deal with him. Said that his family cowered under his stare, that his father was crazy rich to pay whoever ran the school to let him be there, that he was an asylum-worthy crazy but his politician father didn’t want his reputation ruined by a son like him.

Honestly, nobody knew how the rumours about Gaara had started. Hinata remembered that he already been the talk of the entire school since the day he transferred in their first year. On his first day, he almost sent a third year to a hospital when said third year bumped to him and he refused to apologize. When the principal asked him why he beat him bloody, the redhead only said that he bumped to him on purpose. Well, nobody liked that third year. That upperclassman was a self-appointed rank 1 fighter in the whole Konoha and he harassed girls, especially underclassmen, on the daily. How did someone like Hinata even come to know about this? Well, everybody talked about him for the rest of the day, at the classroom, cafeteria, even the hushed whispers in the library. Now that she thought about it, it was most likely the third year who first spread rumours about him because that was the only thing he could do to take revenge on Gaara for he knew he couldn’t win against him in a fight.

So, he was a delinquent? So what? Nothing new.

Another crazier new rumour, fresh of this month, as Hinata had heard, Gaara was a mentalist, said that he could hypnotize people who dared enough to look directly at his sea green eyes. Rumour said that the dark rings around his eyes were what held that power. He never once denied nor confirmed those rumours. Hinata doubted that he would go such length to do either of those. So the rumours were always updated, there was always at least one new rumour about him once a month.

Even if the rumours were untrue, Gaara was downright terrifying and Hinata didn’t want to cross paths with someone scary like him, ever.

But it happened sooner than later.

Hinata was out on Sunday afternoon for sightseeing. She was thankful for the freedom that the students got to go out even on weekdays, although they did have curfews, 9 pm on weekdays and 10 pm on weekends. Some used it to go home to their real homes on Friday and came back on Sunday to resume their school schedule. Unless her family specifically told her to go home on some day, Hinata never willingly did. She hated home. She would only go home during the summer and winter holidays because the dorms always went eerily lonely and quiet as everyone was gone.

Planning to take a break from her afternoon walk, she approached one of the benches overlooking the basketball court and free skateboard arena she frequented, located near the neighbouring public schools, simply to sightsee and watch people play when she caught sight of one Gaara already sitting on another bench across the court. It was both near enough for her to be able to observe him and far enough for her to do it without being caught. She kept her eyes on him as she approached her favorite spot. She couldn’t look at his eyes but there was a moment that she somehow _knew_ they just made an eye contact when he looked up.

Gaara was sitting comfortably, leaning on the backrest, twirling something in his hand and not at all watching the boys play. _It looks like a small knife_ , she thought. _No, it couldn’t be._ Something made of metal, for sure, for it caught light and reflected it.

Nothing happened for ten minutes (yes, she counted) until the basket ball bounced out and right to Gaara’s direction. The redhead caught the ball and stared at it. When the boys saw that Gaara didn’t give it back immediately, someone took a step to approach him but stopped in his track when Gaara took out his knife (oh, so that was really a knife) and stabbed the ball. Her eyes widened at the sight.

“Hey man. What the fuck?”

He finally threw the ball back and left. He really left just like that.

The strange thing was that the boys only threw curses at him but didn’t seem to want to actually fight Gaara, even though the boys were all taller than him and some were much bigger. Gaara was lean, and he was not that tall, he was not short too, just of average. It was a strange sight and from that point Hinata knew he definitely was not a boy someone from her upbringing would want to associate with.

0o0

For the past few days, Hinata had tried to forget what she saw that day but thinking about it would only make her thoughts spiral to his past rumors. Maybe they were right, maybe he was as dangerous as they said.

She had been sitting in the crowded school cafeteria, as today’s menu was her favorite. As always, she sat alone. She had always been alone ever since she came to this school, well she wasn’t planning to, she had few nice acquaintances in her first year, until last year before her second year started, her family engaged her off to Uchiha Sasuke. Knowing the countless number of girls fawning over _the school prince_ , including her acquaintances, Hinata deemed it dangerous to be friends with the girls while hiding the fact that she was engaged to their favorite prince. She had already pictured the worst scenario: her friends finding out and ending up hating her and leaving her alone. Being alone since the start was the safest idea she could think of.

It wasn’t that bad, being alone. For so long, loneliness had been her only companion so she was used to it. And being alone meant that she could observe people and (sometimes) overhear people gossiping. The girls on the table beside her were talking about, of course, Gaara (no surprise). It was rare for groups of people not to talk about the school’s lone wolf. Even if they were originally not talking about him, his name would still sometimes make it into their conversations. Her ears perked up. Yes, she was trying not to think about Gaara but at the same time, she wanted to hear anything about him. Gaara was such an enigma.

‘ _Hearing about him is fine, what’s not fine is interacting with him_ ,’ she decided.

“What happened was he mixed those dangerous chemicals during chemistry and ended up blowing up the school’s laboratory,” said the girl closest to Hinata’s current position.

“What? Are you sure this isn’t hoax?” asked the one across the first girl.

“Yeah, the incident made it into that year’s local newspaper. My relative who lived in Suna still has that newspaper. But his father did some damage control and stopped the distribution and circulation of the newspaper immediately. Luckily, my relative who works on the local newspaper still has the original copy.”

“Did he do that on purpose?” asked the third girl.

“Of course he totally did that on purpose. You know he’s smart, right? We see his name always making it into Top 5 in this whole school every midterms and end of terms. There was no way he didn’t know what kind of chemicals would make an explosion.”

“And he was just an eighth grader when that happened? Is he a psycho? Psychos are usually smart, right?”

“Maybe he’s practicing dark magic?”

Hinata had come to a realization, it seemed that eavesdropping people who were gossiping about other people had become her new hobby. Now it was as though she knew about Gaara more than she knew about her own family, even though nothing said about Gaara was ever confirmed to be true. Deciding she had heard enough, now that they were talking about Gaara being a dark wizard or something, she got up and left for her classroom.

Sometimes she wondered how it was like to be in the same class as Gaara. His class was actually 11-B, just the neighbor of her own class, 11-A. Now that Hinata thought about it, both she and Gaara were a lone wolf with totally different level of popularity. Everybody knew Gaara, the youngest son of Rasa, the governor of Suna the capital city of Kaze no Kuni province and everybody Hinata, the eldest daughter of Hiashi Hyuuga, the wealthiest man in Konoha, but nobody paid Hinata any mind nor attention and she was thankful that people treated her like she was invisible. She couldn’t even imagine being in the center of new rumours every month.

0o0

There she was, sitting at the big table that united two big rich families. One certain Uchiha sat across from her. Sometimes family meetings like this reminded her of her inevitable, inescapable fate. Earlier on that day, Sasuke, your pretty boy next door, had come to her classroom, earning her glances from her classmates, and requested to talk to her, when he could have used a phone, so much for being discreet and subtle. He was jeopardizing the secret she’d held for almost one year by being a loner by choice. She really hated this guy.

And yes, they were engaged before the start of their second year, a decision that was made without her consent. Nobody in the school knew about it. If they knew, well, Hinata didn’t want to talk about it. She loved being invisible, and if this news got spread, all attention would be on her and they’d hate her for something she didn’t have control on. She couldn’t be like Gaara who was unfazed and unbothered no matter how ridiculous his rumors got each month. And if they knew she wanted out of this engagement, they’d hate her even more for being an ungrateful girl. Why would someone throw Uchiha Sasuke away?

Soon her father and his parents would talk about the union, would talk about Hanabi, the new heiress, and her future position as a leader, while they were marrying Hinata off to someone rich (Sasuke) because she wasn’t fit to be a leader and it was a great shame to the Hyuga for not raising her ‘correctly’, despite all the extra lessons she got at home for almost her whole life; languages, piano, sports, and martial art lessons, even basic business lessons tutored privately.

‘ _Newsflash, not everyone wants to be a leader_ ’, she said angrily, in her mind, of course.

Sometimes she wished her family weren’t so noble and old-fashioned. Hyuga was one of the original thirteen sacred families in Konoha along with Uchiha whose lines went so far back to centuries ago. It was not uncommon for the members from these families to marry each other.

If only they knew, people could still get rich, families would still get richer without uniting two big families together. She hated Sasuke. She hated both the Hyuuga and Uchiha. She hated that she was the only one who wanted out of this soon-to-be marriage. No, Sasuke didn’t love her, he only looked at this future marriage as a convenience so he wouldn’t have to search a wife on his own, and so that he could get the full inheritance from Uchiha Fugaku. Simply, he wanted power. And if he could get that by marrying Hinata after they graduated, he would do it.

She remembered Uchiha Itachi, Sasuke’s older brother, whom she only saw twice during her childhood. As far as her memories served her, Itachi was so much kinder than his younger brother and even much more competent in everything he did. They told her that Itachi didn’t want any inheritance and left his home to find job and success on his own. Nobody had seen him ever since.

‘ _No no no no no_ ,’ she repeated it in her mind like a mantra.

Time was running out. Before she knew it, it’d be graduation day. She would only be seventeen going on eighteen after she graduated, very young and inexperienced, but was legal for marriage. It looked like their families were rushing it to prevent the meek Hinata from gaining courage to get out of this marriage as she got older. They had planned it sometime during or after college but they knew that if they waited for a little bit longer, Hinata would have gotten too much outside influence and become independent enough to try something funny, like leaving home, cutting ties off, and surviving on her own.

So Hinata decided she must do something _now_. She thought of running away, like Itachi did, but she still had one year left at school and Hinata knew the importance of education. She knew nobody really cared for her well-being anyway, so if she went missing, they’d look for her to depths of the oceans only so that her family wouldn’t be shamed even further, only so that their plan on marrying her off would succeed.

 _Just run away_ , she thought. _See if they cared for her well-being, see if they were ever worried about her at least once_. ‘ _This would be a big mistake and would only worsen the whole situation but it’s still better than doing nothing_.’ Hinata had finally decided something on her own.

* * *

—to be continued—


	2. Chapter 2

This was a bad idea. She kept repeating it in her head. Last night, after she talked with Sasuke alone out of formality to make their families happy, she had come up with a completely ridiculous idea. In order to think it through, she retreated early to her room, leaving Sasuke confused, even though they had been barely talking.

Her original idea was to get away, at least for a while. Maybe this way she could send a message that she really, really didn’t want to spend the rest of her life with Sasuke. If Sasuke didn’t want to fight with her, fine, she’d do it alone. But this was crazy. She’d never thought about this before. ‘ _Is it impulsive? Yeah definitely._ ’ She would have to prepare everything so she wouldn’t be miserable out there and end up regretting her choice and came back home. Her whole family would laugh in her face. She would make the message very clear. She’d run away again and again and again if her first one didn’t work out. She had the semester break before going to third year and she would use it.

Hinata knew her plan could backfire and knowing her capabilities and limits, she knew she needed help. She needed to get as far away as possible because her father’s men were so many they’d look for her like hound dogs.

“Now where is he usually at this time of day…?”

Hinata usually spent her break either eating alone at the cafeteria or buying some snacks to eat while reading the novels she illegally brought (bringing things out of studying materials are not allowed) at some of the most isolated places at school. However today, Hinata was a girl on a mission.

Looking through the window of 11-B, she didn’t find him. She had fifteen more minutes to look around before the last period began. With hair as bright as fire, she thought she’d spot him easily. He wasn’t at the school canteen, not at the library either, not up in some tree like she thought he would be either, even though he looked the type to sleep up in a tree.

Hinata finally found the person she was looking at the park behind the dormitory buildings, leaning against a tree, his eyes were closed, showing the black rings that actually took up the entirety of his eyelids. She thought it must be his family’s physical trait like how her lavender eyes were. The soft winds made his bright red hair dance like a cackling fire.

This was it. She wouldn’t back out.

“Excuse me.” There was no reaction. “You’re Gaara, right?”

Being naturally soft-spoken, her natural voice was never loud, and his name came out like a whisper due to her nervousness. But somehow he heard her because his eyes opened and his stare went directly to her. Now that she thought about it, he wasn’t that scary-looking. If anything, he looked quite calm. But maybe it was because of the winds or maybe because he just woke up. She remembered that time at the basketball court. Gaara looked the type that would definitely fight a statue for looking at him the wrong way.

“Sorry for disturbing you,” she started. How was she going to explain this to Gaara, who was literally a stranger to her? ‘ _This is a horrible idea. What was I thinking? Right, I wasn’t!_ ’

When he finally spoke, his voice was rough, and deep like it came from the depths of his soul. He sounded much older than his age with that voice. “What do you need me for?”

Well that was rather straight-forward.

The reason for her coming to Gaara was simple, really. Her first choice of running away destination was Suna. And the infamous Suna-born Gaara was the only student that her mind came up with. There were probably other people who were born in the capital city of Land of Wind too but the only one she knew was him because people talked about him so much it was impossible not to know Gaara.

But knowing how his father was a politician, he probably wouldn’t need her money… No, she hadn’t been thinking about this through. “How do you know I need your help?” A smile appeared on his face, he was smiling to himself, his eyes faraway.

“People don’t come to me without needing something, Hyuuga.” So he knew her name. Well, her last name at least. Then again, who didn’t? She smiled nervously. “So what do you want me to do? Vandalism? Assassination? Keying some asshole’s car? Hiding a body? Destroying murder evidence?”

The Hyuuga’s eyes widened. “No!” Just what the hell was Gaara involved with outside of school? Her assumption of him just went from a delinquent to someone that definitely had some shady business going on outside of school activities.

He actually smiled again. But not a friendly smile, more like smiling for himself because he was amused over things she didn’t dare to ask about.

“I need you to go on a trip with me right after the end-of-term exams, I know you’re smart, I don’t think you’ll need any remedial or make-up exams so we don’t need to wait until summer break officially begins...”

“To go on a what now?” he looked like he found it funny. Well, the whole situation was funny, she thought. Though his face showed nothing of it. The Hyuuga took a position in front of him, sitting on the grass. He folded his legs, looking uncharacteristically calm. ‘ _He can be calm?_ ’

This would take long.

As she was drawing breath before starting her sob story, she realized that this was the first time she was in a close proximity with the feared demon. From this short distance, Hinata could observe Gaara’s facial features. Red tattoo of the kanji ‘love’ on the left of his forehead is his most distinctive feature beside the dark rings around his eyes, ruffled blood red hair that only he had, and four black piercings on each of his ears, one on his right ear, there was one on the lobe and one on his helix; on his left ear, two of them were on the lobe. After observing from this distance, she realized how good-looking he actually was, not in the pretty-boy-next-door type the way Sasuke obviously was. On another split second, she thought of adding another piercing on her helix too, like Gaara, it looked cool on him. And Hinata wondered how he even got the school to let him have that red tattoo

Gaara most probably knew she was blatantly staring at him. ‘ _Here goes nothing…_ ’

So she began her story; the story about her noble and business-oriented family, her family’s relationship with the Uchiha, her engagement to the youngest son of said family, and lastly her own predicament that landed her right there in front of the redhead. Hinata couldn’t believe that she just dump her entire life story to a stranger, and Gaara nonetheless

“...and what do you want me to do with this information?”

“I don’t know, Gaara,” she said tiredly, like talking to a therapist, maybe she _was_ that tired. “I’m tired of talking to a family that never listens, I’m tired of trying to find a way out of this alone because Sasuke wanted this marriage even though he only sees this as something beneficial for him. Maybe I’m not trying to send a message anyway, maybe I just hate them all and try to make them see that.”

“So you want to run away from your marriage. Why don’t you just kill the Uchiha and make it look like a suicide? That, I can help you with.”

“I don’t just kill people I don’t like.” Wow, she never thought talking was this easy. She dared to look at his sea-green eyes, there was a slight hint of amusement in there. It was fascinating to see the school demon’s new expression.

“You want to runaway but you’re too much of a coward to do it alone.”

“That sounds about right.” He wasn’t wrong at all, so she could admit it easily.

“Why now? Why don’t you do it exactly right after you graduate? Isn’t it useless to do it now since you have to be back here once summer break ends?”

She knew he was going to ask that question. “No, listen. My family knows how much I hate this marriage. They have planned everything in case the worst scenario happens, and that would be me running away right before they could marry me off. Security will be heightened the second I’m no longer a highschool student, I will be in literal prison. Besides, after we graduate, I don’t think I could ever find you.”

“Why does it have to be me?”

Hinata blinked, her face blank. “Oh I haven’t prepared myself for that question. Sorry.”

“And the reason you’re doing it now is…?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe make them _panic_ a little? To send a message? To make them go ‘ _ohmygod we didn’t consider this at all. Who would’ve thought she’d be running away now?’_ and then tada! I’m back from my little trip which is apparently a secret. When I’m back, my father would chew me out of course and the marriage would still happen but maybe, just maybe, if I’m suddenly gone, he’d be worried about me and change his mind?”

He could see her doubtful eyes despite her hopeful words. Deep in her little heart, she hoped that after her little fake runaway, her family would be a little worried for her now that she was suddenly gone without finishing school, that maybe they’d finally care about her happiness and respect her choices, let her pursue the things she had passion for.

“Haha of course that won’t happen so maybe just I’m just going to spite him? Here his daughter is provided with the best facilities, everything a daughter can ask for, she’s engaged to _the_ Uchiha Sasuke, and the only thing she should do to be grateful for everything she’s received so far is to agree to an arranged marriage, but she’s running away with another boy? Scandalous. Oh I can already imagine his rage.”

“I don’t peg you as someone who does things out of spite.” The corner of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. “This sounds like a terrible idea,” he dead-panned. She huffed in disappointment, she should have known. Of course he would reject her completely ridiculous id— “I’m in.”

“What?” Hinata’s lavender eyes got impossibly wider. “What did you say?”

“I’m in.” Gaara surprisingly answered her twice. That was a surprising amount of patience he had.

“Really? Why is this so easy? I thought I had to literally beg. I haven’t even offered you anything yet!”

His stormy green eyes moved to look at her. “Oh?” He asked, visibly interested. She immediately regretted saying anything. She didn’t trust that look at all. But the bell rang and she made a move to get up.

“We need to talk more about this. And some preparation has to be made,” she said, though looking unsure herself on how to contact him so they could meet on a later date. It seemed weird to be asking _the_ Gaara for his number.

Hinata looked at him curiously, and quite nervously because the bell had stopped ringing and she was still there, far from her classroom.

“I’ll meet you later. I have to go now,” he said. When he moved to get up, she thought he was going to class, but it seemed that Gaara was going to ditch the last period.

“Wait. Where?!” She yelled as loud as her soft voice could, but he was already walking ahead in the opposite direction of both her and his classrooms, not once looking back. Of course he would ditch a class as he liked, and he still ranked in top 5 in every exam. Life was so unfair sometimes.

It was funny how a few days earlier, she had promised herself not to associate with him, knowing his violent tendencies and strange, dangerous behavior, how she especially saw it when he destroyed a basket ball with a pocket knife that he apparently brought anywhere without the school officials knowing (Hinata brought novels, totally harmless, and Gaara brought knives, very dangerous), how the boys didn’t do anything to him afterwards. This was the Gaara who was such a mystery, an enigma, who never denied nor confirmed rumours surrounding him.

There was also this one rumour that said he was part of some kind of cult. So based on the rumours so far, Gaara was crazy, a psycho, a mentalist, a dark wizard, and a part of a cult? He was truly a mystery. And now she was asking his help to take her to a city far in another province she had never been in.

She must have been out of her mind.

Well, he agreed. There was nothing she could do to take it back. (Well, she could, but strangely she still wanted to go on.)

0o0

When Gaara said he would meet her later, Hinata hadn’t thought he would literally appear knocking at her window at half past nine, thirty minutes after the weekday curfew. How he could sneak past the security and knew where her room was without asking was beyond her. And her room was in third floor, in another building _not_ near the building of boys’ dormitories.

“W-wh-what are you doing here? Are you crazy? It’s p-past curfew! What if someone sees you?!”

She panicked but her hands were already moving to open her window anyway. The redhead quickly sat himself on the window ledge. The sound of the trees sounded clearer now that her window was open.

“You’re about to run away with someone who never talked to you until six hours ago and you’re worried about getting visited past curfew.”

“But this is illegal!”

“Never stopped me before.”

She looked at him, really looked at him. This was Gaara, Gaara who probably had some shady illegal business going on, but she would never tell him that. “You do have a point…”

She noticed Gaara was wearing a leather jacket. His feet were covered with black running shoes. He looked like he had just gotten back from somewhere (probably somewhere illegal, her mind offered again) instead of about to go somewhere, while she was in her baby blue pajamas, about to get ready for bed.

“So, you want to do this right after the final exams? Do you know how long it takes to get to Suna?”

“By train, yes…”

“We’re not going by train or plane,” he said in finality.

“Then how else?”

He deliberately ignored her question and went on. “Suna is hotter,” he said, as if indirectly telling her to bring proper clothes for Suna’s temperature. “Leave mobility and _other things_ to me. What do you want to do once you get there anyway?”

“I don’t know. Stroll around? Vacation? Work?”

“This is a bad idea.”

Yet, she got excited to make her father waste money on her by paying his men to look for her. Now, that had to be taken into consideration too. “I know. You’ve said that twice now.” She wanted to laugh. This was probably just a playground for Gaara. He had lived alone in Konoha for years, probably fought a gangster twice a week for him to look this fearless.

“Actually, Gaara,” she started, “there’s this author I’m a fan of. Nobody knows her face because she uses a pen name and never reveals her face to the public. But I know her face, I’ve met her once a few years ago. I want to meet her again and get her to sign my copy of her novel and probably take a picture too, the latest news about her is that she was last seen in Suna…”

“And that is totally your reason why you chose Suna out of every city in this country. Right.”

“Yes, and you’re the only Suna-born I know. It’s like killing two birds with one stone, right?”

“You’ll have to change your phone number,” he ignored her again, “but do it only when we’re right about to leave.”

She quickly sat on the chair behind her study desk and took out her small notebook and a pen. “Change phone number… yes.” Mumbling, she wrote everything Gaara told her to do on her little notebook.

The cold wind slipped past Gaara to her room, causing her to shiver. Nights were cold these days. Then there was silence from them. Well, the two of them weren’t exactly the chatty type, but Hinata realized she had been the most talkative today out of the days she spent at school and she somehow knew that Gaara had spoken the most too today.

Gaara hadn’t said anything again after listing the things she should do. He was probably thinking about other things. Leaning his head against the window frame, his face was tilted up. From her spot, she could only see his side profile. Blood red hair ruffled by the wind and his face kissed by the pale moonlight of that night, he looked beautiful to her. He was really beautiful.

And Hinata thought people at their school were really missing out when they decided to treat Gaara like a nutjob instead of trying to be his friend, or at least his ally.

The silence accompanied by the chilling sound of the wind stretched on, but she didn’t dare to make Gaara leave. She would only wait until he decided to leave on his own. But she was already absentmindedly yawning. Walking almost the entire school grounds to look for Gaara was quite tiring, and it was already around the time she’d go to bed.

“Do you want to step inside? It’s cold, I want to close the window.” Again somehow she was more afraid of kicking Gaara out of her room than letting him, a man, into her room.

He turned his head and he was finally looking her way. “Tomorrow,” he said, “come to my room at this time. Do anything you think is the safest to get to my place without getting caught. If you fail, you can say goodbye to your plan.”

“Wha—”

“My room number is the same as yours.”

“Wait G—”

“Night, Hyuuga.”

And then the redhead just jumped. “Is he crazy? This is the third floor?!” She immediately ran to the window to look at him. When she looked down, he was already up and about, walking away leisurely. What she failed to notice was how he decided to leave after he saw her yawning.

0o0

‘ _I can’t concentrate at all_.’

It was only the first period and Hinata hadn’t been able to concentrate on the lesson at all. The only thing in her mind right now was how to sneak into Gaara’s place the way he did last night. Gaara seemed to be very light-footed so it looked like sneaking into places was his specialty. She decided to survey the area surrounding his dorm building during lunch break.

‘ _If I remember correctly, our dorm buildings have the same structure so if his room number is also 30 then his room is also the very last one on the third floor, then I must…”_

While her mind was working, her hand was skillfully taking notes of what was written on the whiteboard, putting on a very focused expression. She was a pro at this, in order not to gain attention on herself by being obviously absentminded, never had once she got called for not paying attention.

‘ _Boys’ dorms are always rowdy so sneaking in through the front is out of the question. It’s impossible. As I thought, I really have to do it the way he did…Do they have balconies…?_ _Now that I think about it…”_ She had a balcony, everyone did, but the fact that Gaara chose to knock on her window instead, that meant he was sitting on her window railing while he was waiting for her. The window was adjacent to her bed but it was certainly not too far from her balcony. He could have jumped from her window railing to her balcony and let her open the door like a normal person. But Hinata decided to not think about Gaara’s thought process, not like she could read him anyway.

When the bell for the first break rang, Hinata bolted from her seat and wasted no time in getting to the isolated park behind the second year boys’ dormitory. She was glad that the dorms were assigned separately based on year, it made it easier to find second year’s dorm building. If what she thought was true, there would be trees behind the building, like behind girls’ buildings, and there must be at least one tree to help her get up there.

‘ _There it is.’_ Indeed there was a tree, but it was not near his window like she originally thought. It was actually pretty far. She was not sure whether she could even make a jump that far. If it was Gaara, it looked like it was possible for him. She thought that this tree must have been assisting him in sneaking back in to his room at illegal hours for all this time. But there would be student council members doing patrols after curfew.

‘ _Maybe it’s not too late to back out?’_ she thought right before her eyes caught someone who looked like her fiancé walking in the far distance, and that gave her a sudden burst of motivation.

0o0

It was nine o’clock, exactly the curfew for weekdays. The student council members assigned for patrol were scattered around dorm buildings, the front entrance was guarded to prevent students going in and out after curfew. So her only choice was to jump from the third floor. So she went outside through the balcony, all of her lamps were turned off and it was dark around her. But she could see someone below already making rounds behind her dorm building.

Jumping right from this height would be too dangerous, so after she saw the council member made a turn at the far end of her building, she jumped to the window railing that was actually closer to her balcony. After this, her first choice was to dangle from the window railing and release her hands holding the iron railing to safely land on the ground, or jump to the nearest tree branch, and slowly made her way down. ‘ _It should be easier going down that sturdy tree and make a safer jump_.’

Hinata safely jumped to the tree, doing all the physical gymnastics so that she could at least sit or stand on the tree branch before thinking of her next move, she reminded herself of a monkey. But the council member was suddenly seen going back from the last turn he made. She thought he had been gone for sure.

‘ _What? How many turns is he going to do? I should’ve predicted this.’_

She watched in complete silence as he was walking with his torch, the light of the torch going in every direction. Praying that he wouldn’t look up the tree, her legs started to wobble in nervousness. She carefully crouched down, trying to conceal herself behind bushier leaves.

‘ _He’s gone._ ’

Hinata waited for another two minutes, just in case he was back, before finally making a move again to lower branches and made a smooth jump. She safely landed on the ground. She realized how fun it actually was. She was exhilarated.

‘ _Now, to walk the distance all the way to boys’ dormitories.._.’

The school was very well lit even at night, so she had to use another route, the back route which was poorly lit, to get to the boys’ dormitories. She also had to mind the CCTVs and used the blind spots, it was very hard to do. She didn’t understand how Gaara managed to do this regularly because she knew most of his activities were at night and outside of school.

Hinata arrived right below his floor at exactly half past nine. She just had to climb the tree. The patrols probably had made their rounds, and she had to do it before they came again. She was suddenly thankful for all of the family-special martial arts lessons she received her whole life before high school and her perfect attendance at the karate club. While she thought that her skills weren’t superior to Hanabi’s, she had great physicality thanks to those lessons, and so she could climb a tree without any problem. Regular students would probably struggle to do that.

Getting to the sturdy branch adjacent to his window railing, she realized how far it actually was. There were a lot of trees behind dorm buildings but this one was the closest and it was still quite far. She mulled over her choices. ‘ _If I jump, I will either land on his window railing or a hospital_.’ If she jumped and tried to land _on_ the railing, there was a possibility of her losing balance and fell backwards, head first, a sure trip to the hospital. At that point, Hinata was imagining every kind of jump she could do for her to be able to get back to her own room safely.

Making up her mind, she gathered her strength on her legs and arms, and jumped. She could feel the cold win hitting her face the few seconds she was defying gravity, and her hands grabbed the iron railing just in time. ‘ _Phew_.’ Now she knew the importance of strengthening her upper body muscles and her core. ‘ _That was scary_.’ She didn’t know where all this courage was coming from. Dangling for a while and holding on the railing for dear life, she suddenly thought about all of her life choices until now and why she was even doing this at night acting like a monkey just because Gaara told her to.

She finally hoisted herself up. Thankfully, her arms and core strength were strong enough for her to do it without much struggle. She went to knock his window three times and waited not even two seconds, and the window was opened. What greeted Gaara’s sight was a little bit disheveled Hyuuga Hinata, her long hair was let down and dancing a little in the wind and the color was the same as the magnificent night sky, midnight blue in its full glory. The pale moonlight that illuminated her hair revealed the dark blue highlight he didn’t see during daylight. She looked a little bit out of breath.

“Are you out of shape?” Was the first thing he said to her.

“Yeah, a bit.” Hinata decided she should improve her physicality.

She decided to sit on the window ledge like Gaara did yesterday, thinking that maybe she’d look cool too doing so. But she could only do it for a few seconds. “Can I come in after all?” The cold wind was biting her skin in the face and her hair tie was loosened and fell somewhere and it was uncomfortable every time strands of hair hit her in the eye. “You looked cool sitting on my window ledge so I thought of doing the same but I don’t think I look half as cool as you and it’s cold.”

He looked at her and she looked at him. She thought there was a light amusement in his eyes. She didn’t know what was so funny. Hinata stepped further into the warmth of his room and looked around. His room was very neat and clean, not that she was surprised, there were a lot of books on the shelf, the bed was made, his desk neatly organized, and his room actually smelled really nice. She didn’t know if it was from the diffuser in the room or from Gaara who just took a shower, judging from his wet hair, or maybe both. She finally took a look at the redhead, he was wearing a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and black track pants. This was the first time she saw him in very homey clothes. She wondered if he ever wore pajamas.

‘ _Now what?_ ’ Gaara only told her to come and didn’t tell her for what else. It was a test, that much she knew, but then what? ‘ _Did I pass the test then?_ ’

“So how did I do?” Hinata asked, observing his room diffuser. ‘ _I wonder where he got this from. Is it available online?_ ’

Sitting on the rolling chair, he answered firmly, “I knew you’d do it.”

She turned away from his oil diffuser. “You knew?” Hinata would take it as compliment. Tired of standing up, she decided to sit. She looked around trying to find another chair and couldn’t find any, so she settled for the floor, sitting in her most polite sitting position.

Looking at her sitting on the floor, he thought that she was really a Hyuuga through and through, but he didn’t say anything. “You’ve learned how to fight since you could walk, haven’t you?”

Her eyes widened. “How did you know?” Of course, Gaara didn’t answer her question. He looked the type to research about anything for his own benefits and wouldn’t answer any questions about how he knew anything. “I’m not exactly strong nor skilled at that, though,” she added, her eyes were downcast. “So that was a test, right?”

“Right. I expect your father’s men will execute a search party for you the moment he realizes his daughter isn’t coming home.”

Gaara looked really comfortable in his comfy rolling chair. Would it be rude of her to tell him to sit on his bed so that she could sit on that chair? She decided against it.

“So I did past the test, right?”

“You passed.”

She looked strangely really happy. “What’s in your bag?” Gaara asked, noticing she still wore her small backpack instead of setting it down.

It seemed that she also just noticed she was still wearing it for she finally set it down. “Ah. This. My phone and some change of clothes. I was expecting the worst like falling down somewhere and having to roll on the ground or something... and I wouldn’t want to dirty your room, so…”

That actually told Gaara how prepared she was, and that was good. “There are a lot we have to talk about. Are you sure you will sit like that the whole time?” He raised his chin, referring to the very polite sitting form she was in. He could tell it came from habit. “Sit anywhere you like.”

“Actually… can you move to your bed so I can sit on the chair?” ‘ _Welp, was that rude?_ ’

“No. You sit on the bed.”

Hinata blinked. Was he for real? “I was on the tree for most of the time, you know, my clothes are probably dirty…”

“Then go change.” He didn’t see the problem. “You said you brought clothes.” She was honestly so thankful that every room had its own bathroom.

And now Hinata couldn’t believe the situation she was in. Just a few days ago she told herself not to associate herself with Gaara because he was scary and shady, and now she was literally inside his bathroom. ‘ _This is crazy. This is insane. Crazy, crazy. This is crazy_.’ She kept repeating how unreal and crazy it was and wondering why the hell was she inside the school demon’s bathroom changing clothes? No matter how you look at it, it was just unreal. If she told anyone, nobody would believe her.

Hinata got out wearing track pants and a dark blue sweater. Now, even her outfit was similar to Gaara’s. ‘ _Is the universe joking with me?_ ’ She carefully sat on the bed, looking at Gaara nervously, preparing herself just in case he changed his mind and told her to get her ass out of there, but he didn’t.

“Right. Let’s start. Now tell me, Hyuuga, do you honestly think that your father would change his mind and annul your engagement after your little runaway?”

“I did say that I hoped he would but no I don’t think so. I think I know why they’re rushing it, they’re trying to make me powerless. After I graduate highschool, I’ll still be very young and inexperienced in life, but legal to marry. They’re afraid that if they wait longer, I’ll be independent enough to leave, cut ties off, and survive on my own. And why this is even more annoying is that Sasuke accepted it so easily. Nobody is against it but me. So I am the only problem child in the Hyuuga household.”

Why was she talking to Gaara as if she was talking to a counselor? She didn’t know. But she was not going to deny how talking about it made her heart lighter. Of course, she’d told him about her predicament that day but she was talking about a more detailed situation right now.

“You know I’ve been hiding the fact that I’m engaged to him by avoiding the guy at all costs and by having no friends at all, right? But two days ago he just had to come to my class and talked to me when he could’ve simply texted me. I swear he’s doing that on purpose or he just doesn’t care at all and now some girls are always eyeing me every time I walk past them in the hallways and they’re not even trying to be discreet about it.”

And now she realized she was just complaining, whining, and trash-talking Sasuke at the same time. It was very weird that Gaara hadn’t told her to shut up and get the hell out of his room. In her heated trash-talking, she casually grabbed one of his pillows to punch on it, and then apologized to said pillow and hugged it, leaning her side against the headboard.

“Told you. Killing him is quicker and easier. Your father won’t marry you off to a dead man.”

“No, Gaara, killing is illegal.”

“…”

“And I wouldn’t want you in jail.”

“…”

“Hey shouldn’t we exchange numbers? I think it would be easier to discuss things over the phone. I don’t think I want to go through what I went through tonight just to discuss things with you.”

Without saying anything, Gaara threw his phone her way, and panicked, she caught it clumsily. She put her number inside her contacts. Not trusting he would contact her first to at least let her save him number, she decided she’d just also manually add his number to her contact list by calling her from his phone. ‘ _Wow how many people in this school can say they have Gaara’s number?_ ’ Again, she was hit with the sense of disbelief over how unreal everything was.

While making sure her number was in his contact list, she caught sight of other people in his contact list, and there were only eight people in it: _Matatabi, Isobu, Son Goku, Kokuo, Saiken, Chomei, Gyuki, and Kurama_. She knew these were not names of people. Perhaps, some kind of nicknames or code names for members of his gang? Gaara looked the type to have a gang or at least to be a member of a gang.

Now there were nine people in his contact list, the new one was Hyuuga Hinata, yes she wrote her full name. Hinata was strangely proud of being in his contact list, because not even one teacher’s name made it into his phone, not even his homeroom teacher, nor his class president, nor a family member, none. She let out a chuckle. ‘ _He really doesn’t give a damn, does he?_ ’

It was eleven o’clock in the evening and Gaara was still going over their plan. It was as if he was the one who planned this in the first place. She didn’t expect Gaara to be a very detailed person, but now she saw him as someone who wouldn’t make a room for failure.

“How much money do you have?”

“Well, I have monthly allowance that my family sends to my bank account but I don’t use much of it but I withdraw some amount every time to put into my separate personal account.”

He smirked. “And I suppose your family isn’t aware of this personal account?”

“No, they’re not aware of it.” She smiled. “They probably think I just use the money I withdraw since there are actually still quite a lot on that bank account. You know, just in case my family decides to be funny someday and freeze my account…”

He smiled a full smirk again. “Clever.”

“And I know students here are not allowed to work part-time but I’m a freelance illustrator… So the money from my family that I’ve saved up until now plus my own pocket money from working… Let’s say I actually have a lot more than I thought…” It looked to Gaara that Hinata herself had just realized that she had a lot of money.

“Alright.” He made a mental note. “Can you drive?”

“I learned some time ago for like two months, before the start of second semester of second year. But I’m still sixteen, so no driving license yet. Why?”

“Nothing.”

“What month were you born, Gaara?” she just got reminded of how she was among the youngest students among her peers by having born in December of the same year.

“January, why?”

“Oh we’re almost a year apart. You’re already seventeen then. That’s nice.”

“…I don’t see what’s so nice about being seventeen.”

“Of course you don’t,” she said. Gaara didn’t understand what she meant by that so he didn’t say anything back and just let her think what she wanted to think.

Hinata then reminded him not to slack off now that the end-of-term exams were nearing, not that she didn’t know how Gaara seemed to always pass with flying colors without much effort. Though judging by the many books she saw on his bookshelf, he was actually quite studious. He just didn’t study in places where people could see him.

She had already taken notes on her phone on what she should prepare and what she shouldn’t forget. What they were doing seemed like a real meeting before the big event (mistake) she was about to do, but she was so relaxed, much more relaxed in her spot than she should be.

It was half past eleven and she yawned, it was way past her sleeping time. The room smelled somehow even nicer, she blinked slowly and wondered what oil essential he used for his diffuser. She made a mental note to ask about it later. ‘ _Now to listen to Gaara…_ ’

She blinked way more slowly and what she thought would be a little shut-eye became a full sleep.

0o0

Hinata jolted awake with a startle the moment her brain picked up something wrong. As her hand moved absentmindedly to pull her blanket, her nose picked up the different smell that didn’t belong to her room at all. She let out an audible gasp when her watch said it was three in the morning and it instantly woke Gaara up who had also been sleeping in his chair with his head propped up with his hand, for he was a light sleeper. The girl couldn’t even believe she just had a whole sleepover in Gaara’s place.

She got up from the bed and in an unbelievably quick movement, tidied up the bed and folded the blanket. Then he looked at him apologetically. “I’m so sorry, Gaara. I fell asleep. That was very rude of me.”

But the redhead only looked at her panicked state without even saying anything. If anything, he looked a bit confused about a lot of things he couldn’t even process about.

“I must leave now.” It was still weekday and they got classes in the morning. ‘ _Nice, I still have time_.’ If it had been later than this, it would’ve been even harder to get out and run to her dorm without being noticed by people who were already up and about. She grabbed her backpack, hastily opened his window, and made a jump.

“Ack!”

“I’m okay, I’m okay!” She said, even though Gaara didn’t ask.

Gaara was a very light sleeper and he was an insomniac. He could go two until three days without a blink of sleep. He slept yesterday and naturally he wouldn’t be able to sleep the next day, and the fact that he fell asleep without him knowing, without him making the effort to close his eyes and try to sleep, was very weird and unusual to him.

He wondered when he fell asleep. When he saw Hinata already sleeping soundly, he was about to let her and only wake her up after he replied Naruto’s text. _‘Right._ ’ He was in the middle of texting something to Naruto. When he checked his phone, the first thing he saw was not-yet-sent message to his friend.

Even though he slept in a chair, Gaara realized that it was one of the best sleeps he’d had for a while.

* * *

—to be continued—

**Author's Note:**

> thought of writing this after listening to Big Chance by SuperM. First time writing again after 4 years and English is my 3rd language, so don't be too hard on me fufu ;_;


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